Waiting to Drown
by Starla
Summary: Many years in the future, Angel sits by Buffy's hospital bed.


Title: Waiting to Drown 

Author: Starla 

Disclaimer: Joss Whedon owns the characters. The song is 'The Drugs Don't Work' by The Verve from the album 'Urban Hymns' . 

Distribution: Whoever wants it, basically. Send the addy. Author's Notes: This is a 'I've-got-insomnia-again-and-I'm-tired-as-hell" fic. I couldn't sleep, I was bored, so I wrote. Don't know if it's any good, cos I'm too tired to proofread. Anything that looks a little wonky, let me know about it. It's from Angel's POV 

Feedback: Sounds good. 

__

//All this talk of getting old   
It's getting me down my love// 

I sat at Buffy's side, as I did every night, gently stroking the back of my beloved's hand with my thumb. I lifted her hand to my lips, kissing the weathered skin tenderly, whispering to her. 

She'd been like this for months now. 

My Buffy, still the most...alive.... person I'd ever met even after all she'd seen. Even after so many years. She was the longest living slayer ever, and she was finally coming to the end of her reign. 

I closed my eyes, remembering the cold winters night when she had fallen ill. The years had finally caught up with her, and she'd just...collapsed. 

I remember she looked at me. 

She'd known, I think, that the words she was about to say would be her last. She'd reached her hand up, brushing it over my still youthful face, a soft, sad, smile on her face, her eyes the same as they had always been, the spark of fire still burning in their emerald depths. She was still beautiful, even in her old age. Especially in her old age. 

"I love you." 

And then she'd slumped to the ground, and hadn't woken up. 

__

//Like a cat in a bag, waiting to drown   
This time I'm comin' down// 

So I sat here, in a quiet vigil, night after night, waiting for her to die. It hurt me to see her this way, so lifeless, so limp, hooked up to machines and gadgets that measured this or that, the doctors still caught up in futile hope for her life. 

But I knew, as she had known. It was over. 

I remember reading in some book or other that it takes 7 minutes for a normal person to fall asleep at the end of the day. For their brain to stop functioning, to shut down for the night and fall into slumber. 

I think that this was like that. This state of 'unlife' that Buffy was caught up in. I think her soul, her mind, was long gone, but her bodies natural instinct was to fight. So it was taking it's time before the inevitable happened. 

It would shut down. Forever. 

And she - we- would be free. 

__

//And I hope you're thinking of me   
As you lay down on your side.// 

I miss her. I miss her smile, her laugh. I miss knowing that when I wake up, she'll be either curled up in my arms or moving about in the next room, waiting for me. 

I miss her smell. After just over 60 years, she still smelt the same. 

She always smelled good. A soft cloud of vanilla and frangipani followed wherever she went, a sweet, tropical aroma that comforted me, somehow. It suited her, sunny and bright. 

I wonder if she misses me. 

//Now the drugs don't work   
They just make you worse But I know I'll see your face again 

Now the drugs don't work   
They just make you worse But I know I'll see your face again// 

I wonder where she is. What she's doing. If she's happy. 

If the Powers that Be are merciful gods, I'll know soon. 

I'll be with her. 

Call it cliche'd, call it melodramatic, call it whatever you like. 

Once her body gives up the fight, once I know that vessel is safe, I'll see my first sunrise in close to 60 years. I'll go up to the hillside that overlooks Sunnydale, and I know she'll be waiting. 

My sweet, sweet, Buffy. 

//But I know I'm on a losing streak   
'Cause I passed down my old street 

And if you wanna show, then just let me know 

And I'll sing in your ear again// 

Every morning, I take the same route home. I walk down Hillgreen Rd, up Madison, past WIllow's old house, which has long since been sold to a young family, down Revello, and I stand outside that house. I just watch, and remember. 

I remember climbing in that window, whispering soothing words of comfort o her during her frequent nightmares. 

I remember every single moment we ever spent in that house, both good and bad. 

I remember being Angelus, sketching her in her sleep. 

I remember the first time we made love there, after we discovered my soul was permanent. 

These images haunt me, now that I'm without her. Now that she's not here to share in the joyful memories and the painful glimpses of darker times. 

__

//Now the drugs don't work   
They just make you worse 

But I know 

I'll see your face again 

'Cause baby, ooh, if heaven calls, 

I'm coming, too

Just like you said, you leave my life 

I'm better off dead// 

It's painful, just waiting like this. It would be so much better if it were just to end. 

I need her. Sometimes it hurts so badly that I have to stop what I'm doing because I'm shaking too much. 

I'll be walking through our living room, searching for some object or another, and I'll just start trembling. 

I just want it to end. 

__

//All this talk of getting old   
It's getting me down my love 

Like a cat in a bag, waiting to drown 

This time I'm comin' down// 

I still regret not being able to grow old with her. 

I see everyone around us changing, evolving, their hair fading to gray, the laughlines spreading around their eyes and mouth slowly turning to wrinkles. 

But I'm glad I got to see it. 

I think back over my years with Buffy, and there are many regrets, many niggling little strands of doubt, but the thing that scares me most is: What if I'd stayed away? 

We wouldn't have had all these years of happiness, of simple, unchanging bliss. I'd thought I was doing the right thing, the good thing, the noble thing, by moving away from her. I only accomplished in wasting a year that had could have been filled with happy days and happier nights. 

__

//Now the drugs don't work   
They just make you worse 

But I know I'll see your face again 

'Cause baby, ooh, if heaven calls, 

I'm coming, too 

Just like you said, you leave my life,

I'm better off dead// 

I'm having enough trouble existing without her now, in day to day life, and we've had so many years already. How would I have survived if I'd stayed in LA? 

I don't have to think about the answer, I already know. 

I wouldn't. 

__

//But if you wanna show, just let me know   
And I'll sing in your ear again 

Now the drugs don't work   
They just make you worse 

But I know I'll see your face again 

Yeah, I know I'll see your face again   
Yeah, I know I'll see your face again 

Yeah, I know I'll see your face again 

Yeah, I know I'll see your face again// 

I turn her hand over in mine, pressing a kiss to her palm. 

It's going to happen soon. I can feel it. Her body is giving up, slowly losing it's grip on the tenuous connection to life. 

I can feel her struggling against the oblivion that is slowly taking her over. 

I think it scares her. 

__

//I'm never going down, I'm never coming down   
No more, no more, no more, no more, no more

I'm never coming down, I'm never going down 

No more, no more, no more, no more, no more// 

Something goes through me as her body gives up, and I know even before the life support signal flatlines that she is gone, forever. 

I stand, leaning over her, lowering my lips to her forehead, kissing it gently. I inhale, breathing in the scent that I knew so well. 

And then I turn, and leave the hospital. 

*FIN* 


End file.
